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2007 01 05

The TTC Website Challenge Continues

The Singapore Transit information site does what you would expect: it allows riders to quickly identify routes. It also offers prizes to transit users. Imagine that, marketing public transit.

The Toronto Bloggers' website challenge to new TTC Chair Adam Giambrone gathered steam with postings on readingtoronto.com, Spacing.ca, Torontoist.com, Blogto.com, and transit.toronto.on.ca. It seems that Toronto's netroots can influence city hall. In case you missed the news, bloggers in the city were embarrassed by the transit commission's online presence. We asked our readers - people who tend to use the site every day - how they would improve the TTC website. Their answers are honest and insightful.

This is not an academic exercise. If we can boost the number of people who choose to use the TTC instead of owning cars, the city will benefit. Capital expenditures for new roads won't be needed and fewer cars on less crowded roads will improve local air quality. Quick access to good information can help make that happen. More and more people in the city use the Internet. If they can use that medium to easily identify transit routes that will be safe, cheap, and fast then ridership will go up. It is a simple equation.

We have come through the age where public policy was driven, so to speak, by the economics of the automobile. The new age is driven by the economics of information. Toronto can be a leader or a follower in this new era. To their credit, Toronto politicians seem to want the former.